The Raven Conspiracy

Chapter 25 - We Take Our Suspect to the Doctor

Chapter 25 – We Take Our Suspect to the Doctor

We left Anna with Jared in the coffee shop. Kairo’s aunt was supposed to fetch her soon after. As we got closer to the address Mrs Blackwell gave us, I grew increasingly anxious. Obscene graffiti and empty beer bottles lined the road. Teenagers swaggered across the pavements in loud groups, laughing and playing bad music. Every now and then someone would glance at us, and then hurry as fast as they could in the opposite direction when they saw Kairo.

He slowed down near a disused warehouse and climbed off. I glanced around nervously; noticing a group of girls and boys huddled at the corner of the street, not even bothering to hide whatever it was that they were smoking. A few pairs of bloodshot eyes watched Kairo and I from the corner. I clutched my handbag tightly to my chest and walked closer to Kairo.

Kairo knocked on the corrugated iron door three times and stuck his hands into his back pockets.

“Is this place...safe?” I murmured to him.

“What are you on about? Of course it’s safe,” he answered, tipping his head back to look at me.

“But what about those...Wait, they’re not trolls also are they?” I panicked, remembering.

He smirked in response.

“Nah, they’re human and fairly harmless. No need to get into such a tizz. Have you never seen smokers before?”

“Of course I have, but never such young kids...Don’t their parents care?”

He fixed me with a long look, as if trying to find the right words to answer me with.

“Of course. I saw what school you went to. A bubble school. If they have parents...Well, that’s a difficult question to answer.”

He went silent and looked away from me, thinking. I remembered that he lost his parents and wondered if that was what he thought about. A breeze caught us, ruffling his hair across his face. He knocked on the door again and pressed his ear to the metal.

“There’s someone opening. Stand back,” he warned, putting his hand out to stop me moving forward. Simultaneously, he drew his gun and clicked the safety off. Two heartbeats passed and the door lifted up. An engine revved and suddenly I was on the floor, pushed out of the way by Kairo.

“Sh*t,” he swore, leaping up and firing shots at the accelerating vehicle. The tired screamed as they swerved and there was the shatter of the back windshield being broken, but the car did not slow down.

“Wait here, Maya,” he ordered, running back to his bike. He swung onto it and raced after the car, firing shots as he rode. Not wanting to miss the action, I ran after him with my heart pounding. The car sped up, its engine thundering, but soon Kairo overtook and swung his bike in front of the car and forcing it to a stop. The door banged open and someone jumped out, bolting in the opposite direction – straight towards me.

“Kairo!” I yelled, flustering I had nothing to stop the man with and it was likely that he could overpower me. 

Kairo spun around and fired at the man. The man stumbled, blood spurting out of his leg which crumpled under him. He gave an unearthly scream and clutched his leg. Kairo and I moved closer from either side.

“Sh*t, I missed,” muttered Kairo as the man pulled up the leg of his trousers and glared at the wound. He got up to run again, but Kairo and I were close enough to prevent an escape.

“Who the hell are you and what do you want with me?” yelled the man. Now, I could tell that he was in his early thirties and had a fairly neat appearance. He seemed out of place in the run-down area.